The Rose Thief of James Street

Rose culture is rapidly becoming one of the aristocratic fads in Seattle. The ambition to excel in this branch of floriculture has resulted in the introduction or production of a vast society of roses of noble lineage, real kings and queens in appearance, and, by stretching the imagination a point, aristocratic in bearing and action. While the gentler sex take such a lively interest in the rose world, laboring in perfume-scented gardens in early morn and dewy eve, fighting the insect destroyer who impairs the cheek of the damask beauty, they have thus far been unable to overcome the two-footed nocturnal desperado who has so repeatedly despoiled their lovely bushes of their fair tenants, and man traps, bulldogs and shotguns are liable to be employed in the future by some of the residents of James, Marion, Columbia and Madison streets, from Ninth to Twelfth, unless the depredations cease.

Two especial gardens have been repeatedly despoiled. These lie between Tenth and Twelfth streets on James. One of the ladies who has only recently “gone into mourning” for the loss of some of the members of her rose family said, when asked about it:

“Yes, I am lamenting the loss of a number of choice roses and the disfigurement of some of my best bushes, and it is my determination to buy a bulldog for every bush I have, and peg them out, with instructions to bite.”

“But, in a lame—” interposed the reporter, “you have forty varieties, and you will therefore require forty bulldogs.”

“Yes, yes, but I think if I get one big, ferocious bulldog, I will give him chain enough so that he can cover the entire garden. But, seriously talking, is it not an outrage that these little darlings, whom I have watched as anxiously in their growth and expansion as a mother notes the development of precocity, can have no protection from marauders. I wish I could sleep under every bending rose, with a revolver in each hand; then thieves would find the necessary intimidation, and the loved Baroness Rothschild, Marechal Niel and a host of other nobles could rest without fear of molestation.”

“Why not put a padlock or a fire alarm box on each rose?”

“Good idea—but these are too cumbersome; think I will adhere to the bulldog scheme. Do you know that the loss of my last two roses, both of royal blood by intermarriage, almost broke my heart? I had noted the love match between Baron Bonstetten, of German descent, and the Baroness Rothschild. They lived opposite each other. In infancy they grew together, and as they neared the poetic age of youth, when the world is simply made up of butterflies and ice cream, their branches nearly commingled, and at times they became confused, so that one could hardly discern the one from the other. The fair baroness, she of the blonde locks, she of the pink-velvety cheeks, first opened her eyes—a bud of surpassing beauty—and toward the baron she leaned as if inviting tender caress. The baron was coy, and seemed at first not to comprehend the situation, but not very long afterward the warm kisses of the sun expanded the bud; it opened, and in his dark-black red velvet suit he was a rose of exceeding loveliness, and soon he paid his addresses to the fair blonde baroness.”

“This must have been ‘love among the roses.’”

“Quite true; yes. I watched the courtship with great interest and often imagined that Marechal Niel, General Jack, Paul Neyron, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Black Prince and a long line of others grew jealous over the Baron’s conquest, but, alas! the end came quickly.”

“Elopement.”

“It was about 4 o’clock in the morning. I heard a noise in the garden. I heard retreating footsteps; a form dissolved itself in the distance; I looked under my window; the Baron and Baroness had flown. In life they grew side by side; in death they were not separated, for both were in the hands of the rose thief. The next morning I heard voices again. I looked down and there I discovered a girl pull a pair of scissors from her pocket and elope with General Jacqueminot. I screamed, she ran and the fair general was spared an ignominious association.”